ARMY HAS SECRETS!
Stan Brock has Army going places, people, if only for what he claims not to know.
So Brock will run the option, right? The coach didn’t bite.
When jokingly asked if he would use a West Coast offense, Brock said, “What’s a West Coast offense?”
Not knowing the West Coast offense given the performance of the WC system in the college ranks may be a resume line all by itself, but Brock is of course joking. He and the other Army coaches spent “50 hours” reinventing Army’s flatlined offense, an attack totalling 19 TDs in 12 games. (Yes…give it a minute…correct. That’s the opposite of good for an offense.) Brock talked extensively with ex-Army coach Jim Young, an option coach who got Army to three bowls, an achievement that should make you feel very, very bad for not knowing who Young was in the first place.
Now put on your beanies, grab a swig of bathtub gin, and hop in the jalopy for some vintage Army option in the Army/ND game from 1946. Huzzah, and death to Tojo!
Um…why are they playing “Anchors Aweigh” in the background?
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1
Out of Conference says:
Will he allow high paying boosters to sign up for a special, private for-fee email list of secrets- like offense, medical issues, etc., because that always works great in the college ranks.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
2
RUinsane says:
It is probably Notre Dame’s band playing Anchors Away as to take a jab at Army.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:09 am
3
Out of Conference says:
Yes I am.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:11 am
4
jakldawg says:
Next thing you know, they’ll get all nostalgic and start poaching players from other teams.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855442,00.html
March 12th, 2008 at 10:13 am
5
Kernel says:
Let’s take a look back at the year 1928. A year when you might have seen Al Capone dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am
6
ThreenOut says:
#1. What’s sad is that the coach your making fun of had the same amount of eptitude (if ineptitude is a word, eptitude has to be right?) at his knowledge of football.
What is this spread you speak of? I’ll just option short side of the field numerous times and counter subconscious espionage them.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
7
Coop says:
I guess this is porn to Beano.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:34 am
8
Kenny says:
Fiction. There’s no Notre Dame dancing and free verse in the pregame.
Also, how is it that the Irish’s team speed hasn’t improved in six decades?
March 12th, 2008 at 10:36 am
9
Michigan Gator says:
Since I am a West Point grad and this will likely be the only post regarding Army Football for 2008, I feel the obligation to chime in. When Bob Sutton was coaching at Army, we couldn’t wait for a coaching change. Sure, he brought us to a Bowl Game where we almost clipped Auburn. However, as a head coach, he had the public speaking skills of a retarded Thai kid giving a speech on Thermodynamics in Italian. We brought Todd Berry on board who tried to integrate a 20th to 21st century offense, but it’s hard to have success with John Bond as your OC… yes GA Tech fans THAT John Bond. It really wasn’t Bond’s fault though. I honestly don’t see how a team with inferior talent and inferior speed can win consistently without using the option. Most Army fans are now kicking themselves for wanting Sutton to get fired because at least he understood the parameters he was dealing with talent-wise. Furthermore, life during the academy and after the academy is much easier at Navy and Air Force than Army… plus, they are in much better cities (Annapolis and Colorado Springs). Bottom line, I really don’t think Army will attract talent on par with Navy or Air Force until the standard of living for Army Officers post-graduation becomes on-par with the standard of living for Naval and Air Force grads.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:38 am
10
CincySooner says:
#7 took the words right off my keyboard.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:51 am
11
yoyofutbawl says:
4
Shorty Mc Williams did wind back up in Starksville, but he was never as good as he was as a FR. His wife’s family owned Weidmann’s Restaurant in Meridian (damn good vittles & better peanut butter) and he ran the place. If you’re anybody in Mississippi, your photo’s on the wall.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:56 am
12
Brian says:
#6 – aptitude.
Loving the Anchor’s Aweigh background music. Nice.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:11 am
13
ThreenOut says:
Brian,
I know that’s the word…
but why not inaptitude? I submit that the “e” substitution is null and moot.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am
14
OhioDawg says:
I won’t put money on it, but I’m pretty sure that’s not “Anchors Aweigh” playing during the beginning of that clip.
#13 – well said!
March 12th, 2008 at 11:35 am
15
AllWhoYonder says:
I always likened “ineptitude” to “inept” rather than “apt”. yes, the root is the same (Latin: aptus) but that also explains the vowel change. In Latin the a often changes to e when a prefix is added.
/former Latin teacher
March 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
16
Kneel Before Zod says:
Having sung it many times while at Navy, that isn’t Anchors Aweigh.
And for #9, the quality of Army’s football team has much more to do with having an excellent coach that understands where football fits in at the academy (such as Fisher DeBerry at USAFA, Paul Johnson at USNA, or even Bob Sutton at USMA) than it does location of the school or ease of experience while at the school.
To be fair, post-grad experience at Army is notably worse than at Navy (generally, people shooting at you, dying v. shipboard life in the Persian Gulf) and that may impact recruiting. But that can’t be the sole reason that Army football has been unwatchable while Navy has been bowl-bound. To your point, having the wrong coach and the wrong system is much more damaging.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
17
NavyHusker says:
Where was the first down line?
#9, I wouldn’t bank too much on the post-graduation life of Navy football players being so much easier than that of WP players. A strong percentage of Navy football players select the Marine Corp after graduation (I can get you the statistics if you want them) and I don’t think many would call the Marines “easy”. Also many WP football players have to go into non-combative fields (intel, supply, etc.) because of blown out knees and other medical issues, just like Navy and AF.
#14, no that wasn’t Anchors Aweigh.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
18
The 17th Goat says:
#9, Disagree with your quote: “Furthermore, life during the academy and after the academy is much easier at Navy” I guess those mortar shells I was dodging watching the Army game with some WP grads in ‘03, ‘05 and ‘06 was all a bad dream. Wait, it wasn’t.
And you guys have two guys at the NFL combine that might be allowed to do their “alternative service commitment” playing a sport vice actually serving. Meanwhile, I’m at 11 years and counting.
I hope Brock figures something out because l’m tired of sitting in the cold watching blowouts. Please come back to option football, it is the ONLY way for we SAs to compete.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
19
Dawg 05 says:
Pshhhh… 1946 Georgia would have beaten both of them.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
20
DC Trojan says:
I blame technology. Back in the day, it was Willie Peter and “Follow me!” and fighting Nazis in uniforms for the Army, nowadays it’s all helmet cams and laptops and (at best) guerillas.
No wonder they rejected the option as being a little too Western Front in nature. But it’s time to drop FedEx on-field logistics and get back to the fog of battle and shelling confused defenses.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
21
Michigan Gator says:
#16, #17, #18- Points taken. When I say quality of life regarding Army Officers, I’m not necessarily referring to the point of Army Officers getting shot at vs. being on a ship since many Marines are in the same boat. I was more talking about the frequent deployment schedules that Army Officers face since Iraq launched. Army Officers in all fields are facing constant 12-15 month deployments vs. a typical 6-month underway for Naval Officers (again excluding Marines but also keep in mind that no one is forced to be a Marine upon graduating). Furthermore, Army military bases are, generally speaking, shitty. I can say without hesitation that Air Force and Naval bases are much better than your typical Army base. Again, there are exceptions.
Regarding the point about life at one academy being easier / harder vs. another academy, I am going mostly off of what I was told from exchange cadets. The Middies and AF Cadets that I spoke with generally thought that the rules enforced and general living conditions at WP sucked compared to what they were used to. But again, to each his own.
In the end, coaching plays the biggest part in all of this, but I truly believe that it is harder to recruit someone to WP than the other academies… and it’s not solely due to our shitty performance on the field over the last 10 years. Most of the people taking bullets in Iraq (other that the Iraqis themselves) are soldiers or Marines. A USNA recruit knows that they don’t have to go into the Marines. A USMA recruit knows that they ARE going into the Army upon graduating and they are figuring that they will be in a combat arms branch because no one assumes that they are going to blow out their knee in their 4 years of playing ball.
But I’m seriously tired of watching Army get their ass kicked on a yearly basis. I guess it’s karma for what happened in the mid-90’s.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
22
citiesaregreat says:
For you academy debaters let me say a big Thank You for your service whether or not you have healthy knees. You are appreciated.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
23
NavyHusker says:
Michigan Gator,
Valid points. I am not surprised that conditions at WP are worse and more restrictive than Navy, can’t say about AF specifically. However some of that is due to the differences between the services: Army is more focused on following orders and “the book” as the lessons have been learned the hard way; Navy is more accepting of originality and generally looser.
And your point about the Marines/SEALS being optional is true. However I would say that is an argument more applicable to the overall student bodies than the football teams. I believe that in general athletes in aggressive sports have more of the warrior mentality, hence they tend to go Marines or other warfare specialties – not supporting roles. I haven’t seen the data for WP but I would bet that your football players are probably pretty similar in WANTING to be athletes, not athletic supporters.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
24
GeronimoRumplestiltskin says:
In discussing the reasons why Air Force and Navy football have recently had winning seasons while Army has struggled, there is one contributing aspect that I find it suprising that no one has brought up: The 3 academies’ varying conference affiliation experiences.
Navy has remained independent, and can schedule whomever and however they please. They are not forced to share any of their annual windfall from their lucrative annual game with Notre Dame (Home: play the game in a 70,000 seat stadium and keep the gate; Away: the visitor’s share of ND’s NBC deal; both sums regularly top $2M, if not more).
Air Force’s membership in the WAC and then the Mountain West was rather seamless, as a) they had no real traditional opponents other than Army and Navy (they continued to play both), as the AFA only began playing football in 1957, and b) it did little to alter their schedules, as prior to conference membership, they would regularly play 3 WAC members every season, along with a rotation of middling programs (Vandy, Kent, K-State, etc.).
Army’s membership in Conference USA (1997-2004), however, was neither seamless nor a good fit, as traditional eastern opponents such as Boston College, Rutgers, Temple, 1AA Holy Cross, and 1AA Lafayette were replaced with C-USA teams that the Black Knights had no tradition of playing. Furthermore, due to some quirky C-USA scheduling, in 5 of the 8 years Army was in the conference, they played only 1 home game in October, traditionally the peak month for attendance (and recruiting) when the fall foliage is in its fullest splendor, making Michie Stadium one of the best venues for a college football game in the country.
While Army’s unfulfilling foray into C-USA membership was not the only factor in their struggles in the last 10 years, I think it should not be overlooked as contributing to them.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:37 am
25
The 17th Goat says:
Wow, only one game at home in October? An amazing venue to begin with, throw in the foliage and tradition oozes there on the Hudson.
The C-USA affiliation never seemed to make sense, but maybe Army’s mid-90s success (we lost to them painfully all four of my years at Navy) led to grand ideas that couldn’t be sustained as college football evolved. It’s not as if C-USA was a dominant conference, but I believe Army/Navy need to have the independent status. AF faces far less of the restrictions that Army/Navy have to endure (both coming in and post-grad). Now that Army’s C-USA scheduling legacy is fading and is replaced by more flexible (and appropriate) scheduling, the opportunities for success are there.
But I still think it all comes down to coaching and the system best suited for the players that come in year after year (smaller, slower but more disciplined). Navy’s success in the mid-90s and then from ‘03-’07 was almost all Paul Johnson’s doing. Let’s hope Brock is the man for the job in Woop Town.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
26
Pick6Bamr says:
#9 Great points on Sutton, absolutely right. However, you need to give them all back for not pointing out that the song IS NOT “Anchors Away”, but is indeed the Army Fight Song “On Brave Old Army Team”…Go stand in a corner and sing Sons of Slum and Gravy 5 times for pinnance…which will be 4 more times than I ever sang it
March 13th, 2008 at 10:59 pm